From Esquire, The Pixies’ Doolittle: Black Francis’s Track-by-Track Breakdown:

Doolittle is the critically acclaimed album released in 1989 by alternative icons the Pixies. To commemorate the 25th anniversary this year, their label 4AD has just put out Doolittle 25, a three-disc deluxe package that brings together for the first time all of the album’s B-sides and demos, along with the original album and recordings from the Peel Sessions. Many of the tracks are being released for the first time.

“I’m very excited. I suppose it’s our grand statement,” says Black Francis, singer, lyricist, and founder of Pixies, of their second studio album. “We were still young and fresh, but starting to kind of know what we were doing. When we were done with the demos I think Joey [Santiago, lead guitarist] and I felt that, ‘Oh yeah… something big happened.’ We felt confident.”

In honor of the anniversary reissue, Francis gave us his track-by-track rundown of the album, as best as he could remember it. His answers, like the songs, can be abstract, but they’re always engaging.

To me, “Debaser” is like “Satisfaction“, a great song than never sounds dated.   Frank Black on Debaser:

“The song is sort of my Cliff Notes for the surrealist film Un Chien Andalou. There’s just enough information to get you through a test or if you need to know a few nuggets about that film. That was it from a lyrical point of view. Musically, it is what it is. I’m not even sure how I feel about that song. Sometimes I really enjoy playing it, sometimes I find it… I’m on the fence with it. We do it almost every night when we’re on tour. People seem to like it. It’s a good example of Pixies minimalism.”

Black’s take is that “Gouge Away” is the best track on the album:

“We talked about this a little before, but this was a biblical, mythological song telling the story of Samson and Delilah. I like the melody and the lyrics. I think it’s the best song on the record.”